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WILKES-BARRE — As excitement builds for Saturday’s royal wedding, workers at a Wilkes-Barre business have been busy printing life-size cardboard cutouts of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

Wet Paint Printing + Design on Horton Street landed a contract as the exclusive U.S. manufacturer for Starz, the largest British licensed cardboard cutout company, and is selling cutouts online to people across the country on websites such as Amazon and historicalcutouts.com.

The royal wedding cutouts have meant big bucks for business.

Wet Paint has been printing about 200 life-size cardboard cutouts a day and added three workers to keep up with the demand, said owner Steve Taren.

On historicalcutouts.com, a cardboard cutout of Prince Harry and Meghan is selling for $42.95.

Wet Paint also is seeing a demand for other cardboard cutouts such as Queen Elizabeth, a Tower of London guard called a “beefeater” and a red British telephone booth, Taren said.

People like to order the cutouts for royal wedding parties, he said.

Half the people who ordered cutouts online over the weekend wanted their deliveries rushed the next day “which is expensive, but good for us,” he said.

Wet Paint previously made cardboard cutouts of Prince William and Kate Middleton when they married in London in 2011, but Taren said, “For some reason, it was nothing like this.”

“In the last three weeks, we have been running seven days a week, double shifts, basically desperately trying to fulfill orders not only for the royal couple but all the accessories,” Taren said. “Everything British is going. We’ve been just jamming.”

Wet Paint employs about 15 people, who have been working long hours over two shifts during the last few weeks.

Dean Dixon, who runs the printers and cutters, said it has been hectic trying to keep up with the orders for cutouts of Prince Harry and Meghan.

“I’m here anywhere between 8 and 12 hours a day. The last three weeks, I worked over 160 hours,” Dixon said. “The closer it gets to the wedding, more people want them rushed to them.”

After Prince Harry and Meghan get married, it’s not expected to slow down at Wet Paint.

General manager Scott Paull said Wet Paint already has an order for 300 cardboard cutouts of Prince Harry in his wedding outfit with Meghan in her wedding dress.

“It’s been kind of hectic and crazy,” Paull said. “About four or five weeks ago, it just started picking up exponentially like a snowball rolling down a hill.”

Paull said customers usually like to order two or three cutouts at a time for theme parties. In addition to the couple, the queen is definitely another choice and customers usually like to get a beefeater or telephone booth, he said.

More than 3 billion people are expected to turn to their screens Saturday to see Harry, 33, marry his 36-year-old American fiancee.

They are getting married at noon at Windsor Castle and guests are expected to begin arriving at 9:30 a.m., but for those watching in America, the wedding will air very early on Saturday morning.

Although the royal wedding has kept workers at Wet Paint busy, Taren said it doesn’t compare to their busiest time ever when they made cardboard cutouts of Pope Francis when he visited Philadelphia in 2015. That was their largest run, which lasted for about six months, he said.

Contact the writer:

dallabaugh@citizensvoice.com

570-821-2115, @CVAllabaugh

How to watch the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on Saturday:

• On ABC, Good Morning America will lead off the day with a five-hour edition with Robin Roberts and David Muir hosting live coverage starting at 5 a.m.

• BBC America will live stream the event on its website.

• CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King and Entertainment Tonight co-host Kevin Frazier will anchor CBS News’ live coverage from London beginning at 4 a.m. The network also will present a two-hour special, “Royal Romance: The Marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle” at 8 p.m. summing up the day’s events.

• On CNN, live coverage will begin from Windsor at 4 a.m.

• Fox & Friends’ Ainsley Earhardt will co-host the live coverage beginning at 5 a.m. and then join Shepard Smith and Sandra Smith in covering the main event at 6 a.m.

• On NBC, all four hours of the Today show will be broadcast from Windsor starting at 7 a.m. Friday, featuring Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Megyn Kelly and Kathie Lee Gifford. On Saturday, Guthrie and Kotb will co-anchor Today at the Royal Wedding from Windsor starting at 4:30 a.m. and continuing until 11 a.m.

• MSNBC coverage begins at 4 a.m. with Joy Reid anchoring special coverage live from New York City and Stephanie Ruhle and Katy Tur anchoring on-the-ground coverage live from Windsor.

• PBS will broadcast live coverage from the BBC on Saturday beginning at 4 a.m.

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